Once Upon a Time
by noenigma
Summary: A look at 'next Friday'...spoilers for series 5. Now with a second chapter taking us that much farther down the road to happy ever after.
1. Once Upon a Time

Author's Note: This one's for ailsa craig who will, I think, know why.

I'm surprised there hasn't been a whole slew of fics filling in the details and giving us varying views of just how that dinner date at Laura's 'next Friday' will play out. This is my take on that evening…

Disclaimer: This is purely for fan purposes—no copyright infringement intended.

_Once Upon a Time_

Once upon a time, when she'd been incredibly young and confidant, she had made her parents an anniversary supper. She'd laid out the best tablecloth and china, bought fresh flowers for the centerpiece, and lit candles…the whole nine yards. Her parents had appreciated her efforts. They'd gushed and raved over it all as though the scorched, undercooked, soggy, and dried out bits didn't exist. Still, she'd learned her lesson and never actually made another meal—a real, honest-to-goodness meal—in all the years since.

So why had she invited Robbie Lewis to her house—well, she knew that one. It was high time for a quiet, private, what-are-we-doing and what-are-our-intentions, and do-you-have-any-idea-how-much-I-love-you and is-that-at-all-how-you-feel-about-me talk between the two of them. But, why had she told him she'd cook? Wasn't the whole evening promising to be a nerve-wracking, nail-biting venture already? She really must be certifiable.

Fortunately, she was not entirely without resources. She turned to the mortuary's own Julia Childs for help.

"Help," she told her. "I invited Inspector Lewis over for supper next Friday…and I told him I would cook!"

"You didn't!" Julia—who really was a Julia though not a Childs—squealed incredulously. "You don't cook, you don't even bake! You buy your cookies for the Christmas party."

"From a very nice and expensive bakery," Laura huffily pointed out. But she was much too concerned about what she'd just signed herself up for to take too much umbrage. Besides, if it weren't true she wouldn't be begging for help.

Her friend, realizing this was _serious, _took a deep breath, pursed her lips, and contemplated Laura a moment. Finally, she said, "You can do this. First, what were you thinking of?"

"I wasn't thinking. If I had been, I wouldn't be in this mess!"

"Okay…well, what sort of foods does he like, then?"

"I don't know! Fish and chips? And, he does seem to have a thing for garlic bread."

"Well, that's a start…pasta with a simple sauce, garlic bread, a salad, and…" Julia shrugged and casually threw in, "maybe a cheesecake for afters." Laura who was still stuck back with the 'simple' sauce thought afters of any sort might be stretching her luck a bit much. Julia laughed at the terror on her face and went on, "You'll be fine. I know the best recipe for a really quick and easy Alfredo sauce—nothing can be simpler, and it's completely foolproof." She sat right down and, apparently forgetting she was on company time, typed out not only the recipe but also a detailed shopping list. Her boss wasn't inclined to complain about the unauthorized use of departmental supplies or equipment though she did have doubts the recipe would really prove to be all that simple or foolproof when Friday rolled around.

"Hmmm…you know, he seems like such a lovely guy—I really don't think he'll be hard to please. I would think you could get away with buying the cheesecake," Julia mused. "There's that shop on your way home that sells marvelously wonderful ones." Right. She could manage buying a cheesecake much easier than contemplating baking or cooking or whatever you did to actually make your own.

Armed with Julia's list and step-by-step instructions, she decided she just might pull the evening off—the meal anyway. The heart-to-heart talk…the closer it came to the appointed evening the less sure she became about that one. It looked for a short time that work would save her, but the last-minute suspicious death turned out to be a run-of-the-mill coronary that wouldn't get her off the hook. It left her plenty of time to run by and pick out a likely looking 'marvelously wonderful cheesecake', lay out her own best tablecloth and china, scrounge up a candle, and fuss and worry over the rest of the meal. Julia really had come through with a quick and easy menu…hopefully, she was just as right about how well it would taste.

Not that Laura was likely to know either way. She was far too old and far too experienced to be so worked up…but she could hardly breathe and the butterflies in her stomach felt more like rioting gorillas and if she'd ever regretted anything it was asking Lewis over for a home-cooked meal.

He didn't look at all nervous himself when he arrived at her doorstep with his bottle of wine and a small bouquet of colorful flowers. He pecked her cheek in hello, which was not his typical greeting and left her even more breathless than she'd already been. As she fussed with the flowers, she fought to gain some equilibrium and took nice, slow breaths because she'd already fallen on her face once in his presence and didn't relish doing it again.

"Table looks lovely, Laura," he said.

"Thanks," she said aiming for a natural voice and rising a scale or two above that. She cleared her throat nervously, and he smiled sympathetically.

"And something smells marvelous."

"Ah, that would be the garlic bread…" she said, dashing off to pull it from the oven before it was burned to a crisp. He stood uncertainly watching her go and wondering if he should follow her into the kitchen and offer to help or stay out of the way. He'd never known that she cooked and wasn't sure if her kitchen was sacrosanct or open for company. He settled for pouring the wine.

She had carefully followed Julia's instructions without any deviations, and the meal she set before him was an unqualified success. The garlic bread was perfect, and the cheesecake marvelously wonderful as promised. The pasta was a tad firm, and the sauce the littlest bit scorched, but neither of them noticed. It was much better than the microwave dinners he usually 'cooked' for himself if he was in the mood to eat at home. And, as for Laura…well, the gorillas had been replaced with writhing snakes, and she barely managed to push the food around on her plate let alone taste it.

"You're not really going to leave me to eat all this meself, are you?" he asked her, waving his fork at her still full plate.

She gave him a pained smile and nibbled at a corner of her garlic bread to appease him.

"It was all very good," he assured her when he was finished. His cleaned plate backed up the compliment. And that was all very well and good, but…she was afraid that had been the easy part of the evening. "I'll help with the clearing and washing up," he offered.

"You really don't—"

"Ah, it won't take long," he said as he began to gather up the emptied dishes.

"No, Robbie, I'll get it later. Really."

"Don't be silly. I don't mind. I'd be a pretty poor guest if I left all the work to you…it would be my pleasure." She scowled and shook her head at him, but he just grinned and said, "You want to show me where you want these, or shall I just figure it out for meself?"

"You're rather pushy for a guest, don't you think?"

"Sorry," he said insincerely. Fortunately, she hadn't let the kitchen get too far ahead of her. It would have been just too much if he'd insisted on helping with the washing up and there'd been dirty dishes spilling all over her counters and cooker. He laughed and chattered easily while they worked, and she thought he would have taken a mess in stride.

He wasn't there to find fault but to eat a home-cooked meal and enjoy her company. If he suspected she wanted something more from the evening he was hiding it well. It seemed a shame to spoil his enjoyment—oh, for goodness sakes! She'd gone to all the trouble of cooking and candles and all the rest of it, and here she was ready to cravenly let the carefully planned opportunity slip away. What was the matter with her anyway?

She was not a cautious, take-it-slow-and-easy sort of person…not usually. Very much the opposite in fact. More the take charge, rush-in-where-angels-fear-to-tread, and grab what she wanted type. Always had been. 'Laura shows great leadership skills,' was how her school reports had put it which was a kinder, more socially-acceptable way of telling her parents what they already knew; in any group of children, Laura would be the bossy, no-nonsense one directing and ordering the others about whether they liked it or not. That attitude had seen her through all the years of training and hard work and made her head forensic pathologist in a very exacting field. It had stood her in good stead, and she'd never seen any need to try a different approach. But…

It wasn't like she hadn't been in love before. They weren't teenagers after all. Quite the opposite, they were mature, levelheaded adults capable of discussing their feelings without getting carried away and…what? What was she afraid of anyway?

Afraid. She'd been afraid before. The day her father was diagnosed with cancer, that night in the old hospital cemetery which she still couldn't remember without breaking out in a cold sweat…events she couldn't control, things outside of her power to change or influence. But never of relationships. Either the other person was interested in her too or they weren't. Either they gave things a go or they didn't. She'd been disappointed and even hurt a time or two when things hadn't gone the way she'd hoped, but…she was a big girl. No harm done in the long run.

This was different. Had been different for a long time. She'd been in love before but never like she was in love with Robbie. She swallowed hard and sighed, and he looked questioningly over at her. Now or never she told herself. It was apparently never, because instead of answering his unvoiced question, she looked around the kitchen and brightly said, "Well, I think that's done it."

"Aye," he said. "I'm a deft hand at drying up." He'd rolled his shirtsleeves up and had a teatowel thrown over his shoulder, and when he smiled he took her breath away. It was a smile that wiped away the years and the grief and the struggles that weighed him down. And it always did more to her than just take her breath away. "And other things."

She reached out and took the towel from him while she found her voice to ask, "Oh? What other things?"

"Ahh…too many to name."

"Really? Name one then."

"Easily done. I'm very…very good at pouring wine. Shall I show you?" he asked and motioned her back into the dining room. He poured them both another, and they went on into the sitting room. He settled easily onto her comfortable sofa, stretching out his long legs in front of him. After all her maneuvering, she still stood uncertainly for a moment deciding between the chair across from him or the seat beside him. He solved her dilemma by patting the cushion next to him.

"So," he said after she'd tucked her feet in under her and swallowed some of her wine.

"Mmm?" she murmured, not sure if that 'so' merited an answer or not.

"What's it all about, then?" he asked. He inclined his head back toward the dining room and said, "The meal and all…lot of trouble to go to when we could have just gone to our place on the river." He smiled over at her then. They'd found 'their place on the river' on a bank holiday weekend when every place in town had been booked and overbooked. Instead of a fancy meal in a nice restaurant, they'd shared fish and chips down among the moored punts. It hadn't been the weekend they'd planned in Glyndebourne enjoying the _Fairy Queen _and whatever else might have come of the trip or even a night on the town as a consolation prize to make up for the ruined plans, but it had been nice and quiet and comfortable. And they'd made a habit of occasionally repeating the experience when weather and time permitted.

"Did you just feel like cooking, or did you have something else in mind?" he asked. "Because, well…if you're still, you know…" he tilted his head and half-shrugged his shoulders, "worried about Franco…" he waved a dismissive hand between them…"there's no need. You're free to see whoever you want. I know that."

She opened her mouth to answer, shut it, swallowed, opened it again, sighed, and finally shook her head.

"Afraid I didn't quite get all of that," he told her with a quiet grin. Despite all of her nerves and misgivings, he was still relaxed. She didn't know whether that was because he felt secure in whatever they had between them or if he was totally and completely unaware that they had anything besides friendship between them. "Something else, then?" he prompted when she didn't clarify her answer.

He'd opened the door, and all she had to do was walk through it. She couldn't have asked for a better chance, but she still had trouble taking that first step. Fortunately, he made a living getting people to talk even when they thought it might be better if they kept their mouths shut. He knew how to casually ask apparently innocuous, open-ended questions as though he were unaware that something important or vital might hang on the answer. And then he knew how to wait quietly for an answer because a good number of folks would be spurred into spilling whatever was on their mind just to fill the silence. And she was no different than the vast majority.

She searched his face for a sign he was hoping she'd say what she'd invited him there to say, but he looked merely curious. Why hadn't she just told him she felt like cooking? He would have taken that for an answer; he'd even suggested it himself. But she'd hesitated too long, and he'd never buy it now. Even better, why didn't she just say what she'd meant to say? She'd run through it a dozen times, imagining at least that many ways he might respond, and surely none of them had signaled the end of the world. So why the hesitation, why the all-prevailing wish they were swinging their feet over the Thames and eating haddock with little plastic forks? She tried to wait him out, but he was very good at his job, and she…well, he was only asking her to do what she'd intended to do all along.

"I," she started but had to clear her throat before she could finish, "did want to…talk about…um—well, about…not about Franco, but…well, in a way, it is about Franco. About why I worried about Franco—about going out with Franco, because you're right. There's no reason why I shouldn't have dinner with him or anyone else if that's what I want."

"I never said there was."

"Right. That's the problem."

He wrinkled his face in incomprehension and asked, "What exactly? I mean…I know I—well, acted like a jealous schoolboy, but that's not your fault. Not your fault at all. And I'm sorry."

"Did you? Act jealous? Were you…jealous?"

He scowled his reluctance to answer her and, in the end, only managed a wry acknowledgement with the raising of his eyebrows and an embarrassed grimace.

She shook her head at him. "What are we doing, Robbie? You and I? You were jealous and I felt so guilty I couldn't even stand to be in the same room with you…and yet? I don't know where I am with you anymore, and I can't go on like this. I need to know where we're going." And there, she'd said it.

"Ah," he said, and then, in that way of his, he took some time to think before he answered her. She'd always liked that about him. That he didn't just throw out an answer, but actually thought things through. After a moment, he said, "Well, I know where I want to go…I'm just not sure you'll want to go there with me."

She searched his face again before saying, "There are very few places I wouldn't want to go with you, Robbie."

Somewhere along the way, he'd lost his sense of ease and could no longer hide he had just as much invested in this awkward, uncomfortable conversation as she did. "You sure about that, Lass? Because I…well, I—ahhh, I'm no good at this. Never had to be, you see? Val—I never actually asked her to—ahhh, see, there I go. You want to talk about us, and I'm on about her—and that's not right. You deserve better."

"Is that what this is all about, then? Why it's always a shuffle forward and two quick steps back?"

"I'll always love her, Laura…couldn't stop even if I wanted to, and I don't."

"I don't expect you to, Robbie. She's a part of you, a part of who you are. I know that. I don't mind."

"You should. You shouldn't have to share with…" he swallowed, closed his eyes a second, and then went on. "You deserve someone who can love you whole-heartedly."

"But you're the one I want. I love you, you old fool. All I need to know is if you love me too."

This time he didn't stop to consider his answer but said immediately, "Aye, Lass. I love you." After all that time of waiting and wondering, those words coming from him sounded better that she could ever have imagined. They were definitely worth all the worry and energy she'd put into the evening.

She wouldn't have minded if he'd taken her in his arms, given her a good, long kiss, and tried it on a bit, but she knew him better than that. "I suppose I should tell you that that was only the second meal I've ever cooked. So if you think saying that will get you a hot meal every night…"

"It was a very good supper…but I'm not after another. I loved you before I ever tasted your garlic bread." And then he did lean over and kiss her.

"And is that what you're after?" she asked him.

He pursed his lips and nodded his head thoughtfully. "It'll do," he said, "until we've a pair of _I do's _and a signed paper between us."

"Marriage? That's where you want us to go?"

He nodded. "What do you think? Willing to go there with me?"

She had fielded her share of marriage proposals before. If it hadn't been for Ligeia she very well might have accepted Alec's, but she'd never actively been in the market for a ring. She hadn't been vehemently opposed to the idea, but it had never seemed all that vital or necessary. Even dancing this bewildering dance with Robbie, she hadn't ever taken the thought that far. Hadn't dared she supposed.

"As in 'to death do us part' and all that?"

"I know it's old-fashioned and such, but…I am old-fashioned. Plum old, in fact. Going to be a Grandad and all. You might be wiser to give it a miss…I'd understand." She reached over then and gave him a kiss. A long, slow kiss that made his breath catch, and that was only fair because he'd been taking her breath away from her for ages now.

She smiled at him and said, "I don't think you're as old as all that…and I wouldn't miss it for all the world."

_Author's Note:_ _Not quite the right genre, of course, but I simply can't pass up the chance to use the classic line because just how many opportunities do we have to use it writing Lewis fics? _

And they lived happily ever after.


	2. On the Way to Happy Ever After

_Having said emphatically that I don't like writing sequels, I feel more than a little foolish posting this one. Let me say in my defense that I didn't set out to write this story. I have a perfectly nice Sergeant Lewis story started. Unfortunately, it isn't getting anywhere and this thing (not only a sequel but one of those embarrassing, romance-type stories that I also don't like to write—and only like to read when my family isn't awake to laugh at me) was only too happy to jump in there and rush to the finish line. Having gone to all the trouble of writing it down and cleaning it up, and, despite its faults, having grown somewhat fond of it in the process, I decided I might as well post it. Read at your own risk (preferably when everyone else is asleep so you don't have to admit you read such sappy stuff)._

**On the Way to Happy Ever After**

With a stifled cry, he tore himself out of the nightmare. Jerking up out of the bed, he sat shaking and trying to sort waking reality from the all-too-real dream world he'd just escaped.

As used to middle-of-the-night calls as he was, his wife fumbled for her mobile and mumbled, "Hobson." Not even half awake it took her a few moments of dead air to realize it wasn't what had awakened her in the night. She blinked at it to confirm no one had called and then glanced around in sleepy confusion to see him on the side of the bed with his face in his hands.

"Robbie?" she asked quietly and when he merely shook his head and kept his back turned towards her she added, "What is it? Don't shut me out. Please." Two months into their marriage and she'd yet to grow used to his restless nights. The insomnia she'd long suspected; the dreams though—she would never have thought that Robbie Lewis would be haunted by nightmares.

He looked over his shoulder at her. In the glow of her mobile, his shadowed face looked tortured. He scowled at her a moment and then sighed. Slowly, he shifted to lie back down beside her.

"Just a dream, Luv," he said. She wondered if he really expected her to accept that as an answer. Possibly. She'd done so up until now. Too often. At first, she'd thought the nightmares were manifestations of the inner turmoil he felt letting go of his first wife's memory enough to let her into his life. She'd been content to wait them out thinking that they wouldn't last once they'd adjusted to married life together. Lately, she'd come to believe she'd been wrong about that. He'd been too content, too happy with how things were going between them to believe he was still fighting that battle two months on.

Something else then. Something that he resolutely kept back from her. Work she might have thought. Goodness knew he came up against more than enough nightmare-inducing situations at work. But…he'd been on the job long before she'd met him and she'd known him for a good many years. Surely if it had distressed him this much he would have found another occupation long before now.

The room wasn't so dark that she couldn't make out the glint of his eyes, the barest hint of his features. She knew the next move was up to her. She could accept that 'Just a dream, Luv' and let it go for a few more hours or nights until the next one. Leave him to it, trust him to sort if out himself; or she could push, insist he tell her what was going on—and maybe push him in to lying in an effort to evade her questions. She'd been patient up to this point. Let him know she was there to listen if he needed her and not pushed when he obviously wanted to keep it to himself. She'd thought one day he'd trust her enough to confide in her or whatever haunted his nights would fade away before their happiness. But she was beginning to fear otherwise.

"It's not just a dream, is it?" she asked quietly into the darkness. "And it won't just go away…"

He rose up enough to kiss her gently on the cheek. "Nothing to fret over. I'm sorry I woke you. I know you've got the Johnston autopsies tomorrow…get some sleep. I'm a big boy—I'll be all right." Well, that was more than he'd given her before. But it was hardly a start. Not nearly enough. Let it go or push? Lie still and let him think she'd accepted his paltry offering or…

Her mobile rang first this time. A short, happy tune announcing the sad news of a death in the night. His rang a moment later, an equally inappropriate ringtone turning her sad news into something more sinister. Murder and mayhem. Surely such things should be announced with somber bells not electronic jingles.

"Saved by the bell," she might have told him if they both wouldn't have been pulling on their clothes, running tired hands over their hair, fumbling for car keys, and heading out the door to do their jobs.

It didn't take a rocket scientist to know that this sudden death hadn't been your run-of-the-mill coronary. She shook her head sadly over the bloody, ill-used corpse before her and went to work. He'd want answers, lots of them and yesterday. She glanced over the body and across the expanse of grass where he conferred with Sergeant Hathaway. Standing outside the emergency lights set up to illuminate her work, they were clothed in darkness and mystery…an appropriate enough picture of the mysteries the two consistently faced as homicide detectives. Their tall, lanky silhouettes threw even taller, lankier shadows out into the deeper darkness behind them making them part of the darkness, part of the mystery. Unsettled by his nightmares and his unwillingness to confide in her about them, she frowned hoping it wasn't an apt picture of her marriage.

Of course not, she and Robbie were more than happy enough. A few bad dreams didn't change that. She shook her head at her foolishness, chalked it up to hormones—must be about that time, and pushed him and her worries to the back of her mind…the body before her deserved her full attention.

He squatted on the dead girl's other side while she gave him what answers she could. "That's really all I can tell you until I've had a proper look."

He blew out a puff of contemplative air and nodded his head in acknowledgment. She began to gather up her equipment while he silently conferred with their victim. Not for the first time, she wished she were privy to the inner workings of his mind. They'd met over a dead body. Well, good as anyway.

Not that he probably remembered. He'd been in his heyday after all: working with Morse, happily married, kids both still close and at home. She'd remembered because it had been her first week on the job, her first meeting with Morse who was the most demanding of all the detectives she'd be expected to work with. She'd been as nervous as they come, determined to prove herself capable and in charge. Sergeant Robbie Lewis had been very much unlike the kind of man she'd expected to meet as she fought to get her footing as head pathologist in the good, old boy's network of Oxford CID. He hadn't bristled at her preemptive attempt to disarm Morse before the chief inspector could do the same to her. Instead, he'd been amused and kind and friendly and utterly disarming in his own right.

He had seemed then and all the years since an open, easygoing man…not a man to keep secrets. But, she'd certainly had her fair share of dreams she wouldn't want to parade before anyone, even him. She decided she was making a mountain out of a molehill over his reticence to discuss his nightmares. There was nothing sinister or foreboding in his silence. They'd be of Val most like; he wouldn't want to bring his former wife up lying in his new wife's bed. Or they'd be embarrassing. She'd had any number of those sorts of dreams…a fair number concerning a then-happily married man who had innocently and ignorantly caught her fancy. No, she'd be wise to not force him to air his dreams before her.

Finishing his appraisal of the body, he groaned as he straightened up. "Right then. We'll be off. James," he called motioning to the sergeant off shadowing the forensic team from one possible clue to the next. His mind was already on the case, chasing possibilities and deciding on their best course of action, and she knew there was a good chance he'd stride off without a backwards look her way.

He didn't though. He stepped close to her and lightly touched her elbow. There was no proscribed behavior for the pair of them. Their superiors expected them to be professional enough to not carry on inappropriately on the job but it was anyone's guess just what they'd consider appropriate and what they wouldn't. A light touch at a murder scene could hardly be construed as acting like love-struck teenagers; even so, she knew heads were turning and her team was winking at one another. The price they paid for being newlyweds.

"It'll be a long day, I reckon," he told her ignoring the looks they were getting. "I'll catch up with you when I can. Best to not expect me to make your dinner with Ellen. Give her my apologies, won't you?"

"Right. At this rate, I might not make it myself. It was a full day before this," she answered motioning with her hand towards their body. He nodded sympathetically, squeezed her elbow gently, and headed off with Hathaway. She didn't linger to watch him go. There'd been a traffic accident the evening before and there was already a queue waiting for her back at the mortuary. He'd want anything she could give him on his victim just as soon as she could get to it. The night was beginning to give way to day, and there was no hope of finishing it out in bed. Best just to get on with it.

It would have been too cliché for her to faint over the first corpse of the day, but she did feel lightheaded and weak-kneed. She attributed it to sleep deprivation and the lack of breakfast and went on with her work. The exhaustion swamping her in spite of the two hurried cups of coffee that she'd downed in place of breakfast she ignored. The nausea that washed over her in an unexpected and almost overwhelming wave soon thereafter she swallowed down and tried to ignore as well.

She hadn't been sick over a corpse since that first, long-ago day in the anatomy lab…it didn't do to show weakness in the cutthroat world of premed, and she'd made sure it had never happened again. It didn't make sense that this far down the line she'd be turning green over a body that looked far better than a good eighty per cent of those that passed under her knife. Well, it was that time of year, there was probably a stomach bug going around, and she'd best get everything out of the way before it struck her full force.

The accident victims, an entire family wiped out when someone made the mistake of turning left into a right-bound lane, took her into mid-afternoon with only a brief pause for an uninspired and hurried lunch of stale sandwiches and lukewarm coffee which had sat in the pot past its best used by date. Lunch didn't set well with her, but half-expecting to be hit with the stomach flu at any moment and taking into account the way her day had gone, that was hardly surprising.

The postmortem on Robbie's latest murder victim was a depressing affair. She'd died slow and hard and that was all too plain for the pathologist painstakingly recording each step of her sad passage from lively, young woman to gruesome corpse. Hobson finished the actual job quite late in the day. By the time she'd completed the paperwork and left a message for Robbie that the report was in, she was almost unforgivably late when she slid into the restaurant booth across from Ellen Jacoby, her old college chum, and gave her Robbie's regrets along with her own apology.

Ellen was as easygoing as Robbie and the evening was a bright spot in an otherwise trying day. Her stomach was still iffy enough she only picked at her meal, but a couple hours laughing and relaxing with Ellen were just what she needed to face her empty house when she finally dragged herself home.

She'd been single so long that an empty house shouldn't have been so depressing. In fact, there'd been days since she'd married when a few quiet hours at home alone had sounded almost like heaven. She was used to solitude, and even though she was more than happy to find herself a married woman very much in love with her husband, sometimes she missed having time to herself. But, after a long, tiresome day…it would have been nice to come home to Robbie and James sitting around shooting the breeze and unwinding as they frequently did when a case wasn't keeping them out to all hours of the night.

No such luck today. And from the tired, discouraged sounds in Robbie's voice when he'd called to interrupt her time with Ellen and clarify a point or two of the path report, quite possibly not for days to come. It was shaping up to be a difficult case. In more ways than one. Difficult to deal with the pain and horror their victim had undoubtedly endured before succumbing. Difficult to deal with the evil her assailant embodied. Difficult to follow the trail and bring that evil to justice. And, first thing in the morning, there would be the difficult task of supporting the bereaved and devastated parents as they made the formal identification. Sometimes she wondered why she hadn't been drawn to some other field of medicine where death would be an unexpected and infrequent presence. What was she doing in forensics?

She plopped wearily down onto the sofa and kicked off her shoes as she thought that over. She'd enjoyed the challenge of the job. The clinical skills and high standards it demanded. The lack of patient interaction which she'd found very disconcerting in training…it was one thing to cut up a dead body; something else entirely to have to tell a living, breathing human being that that day was coming. She'd never found within herself the ability to give that sort of news with the compassion and understanding she felt it deserved, and she'd been unwilling to do it with anything less. A professor or two who made the whole thing sound immensely fascinating and a recruiter who made it all sound deeply rewarding and worthwhile had tipped the balance towards forensics. Coming off of her oncology rotation, she'd been only too glad to sign up.

Before that she'd had a brief flirtation with obstetrics which had ended abruptly when she'd been told that she was unlikely to ever have use of an obstetrician herself. The thought of delivering other people's babies day after to day knowing she'd never have one herself had been too much for her to contemplate in those early days. That sorrow had faded through the years and just as well for she'd never found herself in a relationship where children would have been a wise idea. Even now, married to a man she knew made a wonderful father, it was all rather late in the day and he'd already traded in childrearing for grandfathering—and maybe that was what the dreams were all about.

Not worries over the marriage but worries over his daughter and the upcoming birth of his first grandchild? He'd never mentioned the births of his children…whether they'd been easy for Val or difficult, traumatic for the young couple or simply joyous affairs. She knew all too well that since Val's death he'd had a tendency to brood…ok, call it what it was, he'd been close to clinically depressed at times. It had been only after Val had been gone for quite some time that the two of them had grown close, but Laura had fancied him from the beginning and watched the grief and sorrow of his loss devastate the happy, easygoing man she'd met at Blenheim that far off day. She wouldn't have thought it of the sergeant he'd been then, but she could see that worry over his daughter's coming delivery could be turning up as nightmares in the brooding man he'd become—if that were the case, time would erase them without her interference.

That was just as well because there was nothing she could say to ease those fears. Make promises she couldn't keep, give assurances that they both knew were useless…during her training, she'd seen too many things go wrong even in the most straightforward of births for her to promise him everything was bound to go well. Even though it was, of course.

Better to talk about it then or leave it unsaid? The birth wasn't far away. If it were the problem, it would be dealt with soon enough. And, if not? She nodded off to sleep pondering that question and woke to his gentle nudge.

"Come on, Lass…time for bed for the both of us, I think," he told her, and she roused enough to drop into their shared bed. She was all but asleep again before he stretched out beside her and put an arm over her shoulder. She vaguely heard his murmured, "Good night," but was too far gone to rouse herself to respond.

If nightmares disturbed his sleep that night, she was too exhausted to let them wake her. He did that the next morning, patting her shoulder and saying, "Laura, when did you want up? A bit late for you, isn't it?" She sat up with a start and looked at her alarm clock. Half six. She'd been too tired to set the alarm the night before. She groaned, shook her head, and flopped over.

"I'm off then," he said coming around the bed to kiss the top of her head. She hadn't heard his alarm, shower, anything…

"I must have been dead to the world," she muttered.

"Aye," he agreed. "Took me ages to wake up to my own alarm, and then Hathaway had me phone agoing while I was in the shower. You slept through it all…late night?"

"Long day more like."

"Even so…not like you. You're not going to lay there and fall back to sleep are you?"

She waved away his concern. "I'm up. I'm up," she said and sat up to prove it. "You'll be there, won't you? For the parents…"

"I'll be there. It's a fisherman we need to speak to this morning. Witness, not a suspect—no sign of one of those yet. But, we'll miss him if we don't go now…"

She had to hurry herself to get to work on time. Bad form for the boss to show up twenty minutes late. Thankfully the half-sick feeling she'd struggled under yesterday was gone…not a stomach bug after all. Worry possibly or lack of sleep, either way gone now and good riddance.

She'd barely stepped out of the shower when the nausea returned full force. Thankfully, as she wasn't sure she'd have made it to the toilet before the inevitable struck if she hadn't already been in the same room. Afterwards she sat shaken and pale on the edge of the tub. The thought might have crossed her mind then if she'd been a few years younger and if she hadn't spent the majority of her adulthood being told it wasn't in her cards. As it was she decided she must have a bit of a bug after all. As her patients weren't susceptible to whatever she might drag in with her, she finished getting ready for work and went in anyway. There was too much to do for her to call off sick.

True to his word, Robbie arrived (barely, rushed and smelling faintly of fish which didn't help any with the nausea that was still plaguing her) in time to quietly and somberly escort their victim's parents in. They seemed hardly old enough to have had a daughter that age. They both had the brittle, fragile look of disbelief and incomprehension that Laura had seen far too many times over the years. She watched them carefully, knowing that at any instant that protective shield could crumple and bring them face to face with their loss…and it was anyone's guess if that would leave them prostrate on her floor or going after one of her lab techs in a wild frenzy or anywhere in between.

Robbie also watched them closely, but he kept throwing questioning glances her way as well. He'd frowned at her and murmured a quiet 'you all right?' when he first arrived which made her think she must look pretty much as bad as she felt.

"A touch of a stomach bug…nothing to worry about," she'd assured him.

"Hadn't you better be off home then?"

"I think the worst of it is past…I'll be fine."

"You sure? Your—" the conversation had ended there when one of her lab assistants had buzzed that the parents had arrived. He'd gone off to bring them through, and she'd made sure the body was as presentable as it could be under the circumstances.

Next-of-kin identifications were the worst part of her job. Fortunately, in cases of violent death, it fell to the investigating officers to interact with the family. She usually found it necessary to murmur some sort of consolatory remark, but most of the relatives of the murdered were too stunned and horrified at finding themselves standing in her mortuary to hear what she had to say. The few who did seem to take in her words doubtlessly forgot them before they walked shakily back through the door. Even so, being there, seeing their sorrow, their shocked and horrified faces, the pain radiating from them, the way they seemed to shrink in the process of identifying their loved ones…the absolute worst part of the job.

The detectives who were tasked with requiring the bereaved to say the words, to admit what they were desperately trying to deny—"Yes, that's my son, my husband, my wife, my daughter, my mother, my father"—were the ones who had to have broad shoulders and fresh tissues handy for those who broke down and wept, and thick skins and a calm exterior to deal with those who yelled and railed and fought against their grief. They were the ones who had to not only murmur words of comfort but demand answers and information…she was glad she wasn't one of them.

Some of them were bloody useless at the job, handling it in such a way that the family received a double blow. Some of them though…if the time ever came where she had to stand there and say those words, they were the ones she wanted at her side. Robbie most of all. He'd been among the best before Val had died…though she might have been biased, of course. After Val's death…well, he'd been there and it showed in his compassionate words and quiet support, and that wasn't her biases talking. On rare occasions, families would send notes of gratitude to those who had made their time in her domain more bearable…and almost always, if there'd been a detective involved, it had been Robbie.

Today was no exception. As he ushered the couple out of the room, she could hear his quiet, gentle voice murmuring indistinctly to them, holding them up, comforting them in a way she'd never managed to learn in all her years of dealing with the dead and their families. She waited until she was sure the door had shut before she turned back to their victim now officially Shana Codwell, 20, student and resident of Lonsdale College, daughter of Sheila and Charles Codwell of London.

As she did what needed doing, she found herself blinking back tears. It happened more than she liked anyone to realize, particularly her staff. She wasn't ashamed of her emotions; would have been more ashamed if the sorrow she worked around every day didn't occasionally touch her deep down where it hurt, but still she didn't like them to show. And crying was a nuisance, requiring her to either sniffle under her mask or unglove and wash her hands so she could wipe her nose…not at all the sort of professional behavior she wanted to model before her people.

Her husband stuck his head through the door before she'd quite managed to get herself under control. "I've got to—are you all right? Laura?" He moved quickly to her side but was careful to not reach out and touch her; he'd been around the lab long enough to know that was not the thing to do.

"Fine. I'm fine," she answered and even to herself she sounded petulant and crabby. She took a deep breath and softened her voice before explaining, "Sometimes it just gets to me, you know?"

He blew out a considered breath and said, "It's a tough one this. The parents are devastated, as you'd expect. Can't get anything out of them—and feel like a brute for trying. Still, it's the job, eh? And I've got to run. Hathaway's lined up another witness—clear out Jericho way. But…" he gave her a considering glance, "you sure you're all right? The stomach and all?"

"I'm sure…just fine."

"Well, then. It's off to work I go, hi ho, hi ho," he said leaving her with a smile on her face. It hadn't been a lie at the time, being just fine. Unfortunately, by midmorning, she was feeling quite iffy. She snatched a few soda crackers from the break room because there was nothing left in her stomach and if she was going to be sick a little something was far better than nothing.

"Crackers at ten?" Julia asked her in surprise. "You, too, then?" She held up her own handful of them. The idea was so far removed from Laura's thoughts that it took a moment for her to realize what her assistant was meaning. "I thought you looked a little green the last morning or two," Julia added as her boss stared dumbly at her.

"Crackers, yes," Laura finally spat out, "but…it's just—I haven't felt real well. That's all."

"Famous last words," Julia said. "The very thing I said if you remember…right up until Greg forced me to take the test."

Laura smiled at the younger woman. "I do remember. But, in my case…I'm sure it's just a stomach bug. I'll do my best not to pass it on to you."

"Ugh. Please do…the very last thing I want to think about right now!"

Apathetically nibbling on the crackers over paperwork, Laura didn't give the idea another thought. Years ago the conversation might have filled her with regret and sorrow, but she'd had too many years to accept her loss to let it faze her now. Even when she found herself tossing up her crackers in one stall and Julia doing the same in the next, she didn't give the idea any credence.

After spending a good part of the afternoon nodding over her reports in a most unprofessional manner, she went home to an empty house once again. Well, she hadn't expected him home. Not this early. Not with this case. She kicked off her shoes and flopped down on the sofa and, like the night before, he woke her to send her off to bed.

"I don't like this," he told her following her down the hall as she sleepily made her way to the bedroom. "You're sure it's nothing to worry over?" She yawned at his concern and wondered what he'd think if she didn't bother with changing out of her work clothes into her nightgown. "Laura?"

"Hmmm? Oh, yeah. I'm just…"

"Fine," he finished for her though he sounded less than convinced. "So you've said, but…you've eaten and kept it down?" She hadn't. The crackers had convinced her it wasn't worth the effort.

"Yes, I've eaten," she told him leaving it at that and not bothering to disguise her annoyance at his motherhenning. "It's just a flu…"

"So you said. And I'll take your word for it if I must. You get some sleep…I'll be along in awhile," he told her. He kissed her on the cheek and she regretted her sharp words. She leaned against him a moment, hearing the strong thumping of his heart, feeling his warmth, and taking in his smell.

"I love you," she murmured and he kissed the top of her head in response.

"Come on, then. Bed," he told her like she were a young child, and she realized that she must have nodded off against him. Embarrassed, she slipped out of his arms and throwing a 'good night, Robbie' over her shoulder hurried into the bathroom. She thought he would have gone about his business before she came out, but he was sitting on the edge of the bed waiting for her. Seeing her, he stood and pulled down the covers on her side. She scurried by him and he pulled the blankets up over her once she was settled in. Leaning over to kiss her, he smiled and said, "Sleep tight, Luv."

"Thanks. You, too," she answered though she doubted he would. He'd sit up late working on the case and catch only an hour or two of sleep when he nodded off in the chair. If she wouldn't have been so bone-tired herself, she'd have given him a little time to muse over the case and then talked him into joining her in the bed. But as it were, she was asleep before he'd made it into the sitting room.

She'd forgotten to set the alarm again and only woke up because she needed the restroom. As she'd expected, he was snoring in his favorite chair. She left him to it while she showered and got ready for the day. She was feeling fine and it was early enough she decided there was time to make him a bite to eat before she had to head into work. (She'd learned quite a bit about putting breakfast on the table since marrying a man who highly valued his morning meal.) It was a nice thought but before she could act on it she was running for the toilet again. She was glad he was sound asleep in the other room so he couldn't hear her. She'd already given him enough reasons to fret and stew.

She was coming close to giving herself enough to worry about also. She washed her face and rinsed her mouth, and with a frown, she checked her calendar. So. She was late…a few days maybe. Not an uncommon happening; she'd never been all that regular. At her age…well, she was getting there, wasn't she? It wouldn't be unexpected if she experienced some hormonal fluctuations. And that would probably explain what was bothering her if it wasn't just a bug.

She was called out to a crime scene before she'd even arrived at the mortuary and spent the better part of the morning there. The detective team catching this one didn't score very high in her estimation. Which made the need for her to meticulously cross every _T_ and dot every _I_ that much more important. And the official next-of-kin identification…she'd need to be sure to not hand that over to one of her staff. It would take every ounce of professionalism and humanity she possessed to keep the inspector from running right over the feelings of the bereaved and trampling them under foot.

As usual, she was spitting mad after spending the morning anywhere near the pair of bungling jokers. Honestly, what was Jean Innocent thinking keeping those two on the payroll? If they were her employees she'd have kicked them out on their worthless backsides eons ago.

Oddly enough, the work, the fresh air, and/or the vexation got her through the morning without any bouts of nausea and vomiting. About time. It had really been getting old. And Robbie would be quite pleased as she was ready for a real lunch after all that—maybe then he would quit coddling her.

She bumped into James on the way back. "Did you need something?" she demanded of him suspiciously. If Robbie had sent his sergeant over to check up on her…

"Just verifying something on the Codwell case," he assured her. "Julia helped me out."

"Good," she said dialing back her irritation. That was all right then. Though why he hadn't just called—

"Actually, I was hoping to run into you," he began and she gritted her teeth and waited for it, "I was wondering…everything all right between you and Himself? He's been in quite a snit today…I mean I know the case—young woman, torture, the sort that tends to get to him, but…" He shook his head in bewilderment.

She frowned at him trying to decide whether she should give him the what-for for sticking his nose into their business or a bit of sympathy for having to put up with a glowering Robbie who must really be throwing his weight around for it to trouble James. It was that bewildered look on the sergeant's face that tipped the scales…sometimes she wondered if he was aware how much like a little boy he could look and if he took advantage of that fact.

Either way, she softened her tone and assured him, "We're fine. He was up late worrying over the case…you know how he is. I imagine that's it." Hathaway nodded understandingly. "Are you making any progress at all?" she asked him before he could leave.

His face told her the answer before he did. "No. Not a glimmer. Inspector Lewis is afraid he'll strike again if we don't stop him, but…" He shrugged dejectedly and headed off.

He must have just missed Robbie in the hallway, because she'd hardly reached her office when he poked his head in. "Quick lunch?" he asked hopefully. More than pleased at the chance to prove to him she was once again fit as a fiddle, she pulled her jacket back on, took his arm, and went to lunch. With the bunglers on the case, there was no hurry getting to the new body the minute it arrived, and with Robbie's case going nowhere she could work late as he certainly would.

"Are you up for it, then?" he asked. "Lunch I mean?"

She smiled up into his worried face and assured him she was starving. He grinned back with relief and offered to let her pick where they'd eat. There were several establishments within easy walking distance, and they'd tried them all. In deference to his browbeaten sergeant, she picked a chip shop hoping that would help him get over his 'snit'.

"It seems like I haven't seen you for days," she said. "Anything going on I should know about?"

"Our Lyn called. Doctor says she could go any day now."

"What will you do if she calls and the case…will you leave it with Hathaway?"

"No choice, have I? Not like I'd miss it…aah, Hathaway will do fine. Can't do worse than me…spinning my wheels while that" he swallowed down the repugnance he felt for the killer, "…monster is stalking the next one. And us doing sod all." As there was little to say in answer to that, they ate quietly for a moment or two before he said, "And you? Caught another body today I hear."

"Dunlap's," she said.

"Tie you up so you can't get away?"

She shook her head. "Pretty straightforward…until Dunlap gets his hands on it. Unless the killer turns himself in, it's bound to stay on the books for months to come."

Robbie who was all too aware of her antipathy of Dunlap, rubbed a finger under his eye and kept quiet. There wasn't much he could say that wouldn't stir her up when she was on about the inspector and he knew it. She gave him an apologetic look and didn't mount that particular hobbyhorse.

"Dunlap's case won't keep me here," she assured him. "I've got the lab covered if Lyn calls."

"Good. Glad to see you eating," he told her. "Kinda had me worried there."

She shrugged off his concern. "I told you it was nothing."

"Yep, and you also told me you were feeling better yesterday. But I heard you this morning…didn't sound better to me. And you were still looking green around the gills."

She ducked her head guiltily and then raised it to smile reassuringly at him, "I was feeling better when I told you I was…just sort of came and went."

"But…it's gone now, right?"

"Oh, don't start again! I'm fine. More than fine. I'm starved…are you going to finish those?" she asked pointing towards the last of his chips. He looked at her in surprise and no wonder because he was forever having to finish off the last of hers.

"Well, if you're really wanting them, I suppose—only because I love you, mind—I'll split them with you."

Lunch was over all too quickly. Inspector Dunlap insisted on being present for the autopsy of his body. It was all she and Julia could do to keep him from contaminating the evidence six ways and back again. And all the time with him calling them 'girls' and 'dears' and setting their teeth on edge. And the next-of-kin identification was worse than Laura had imagined possible. It took almost an hour to calm the victim's mother after Dunlap's insensitive sergeant had spent two minutes with her.

Most of that time she'd spent valiantly trying to keep down both her ire and her lunch. So much for feeling better. As soon as she'd sent the mother home and after losing her lunch, she sat down and wrote an official complaint against Dunlap and his sergeant. She was well aware that it would cost her in the end, but it was a price she was willing to pay. She swallowed down hot, angry tears as she worked on the complaint and had to wipe them roughly away when Julia knocked and stuck her head around the door.

Julia held out a cup of tea and said, "I thought it might help."

Embarrassed, Laura sniffled and wiped her face. "Thanks…"

Julia brought the tea over and hovered close by. "I know," she began warily, "it's none of my business, but…are you sure you're ok? Dr. Gonez and I can cover if you need to go home."

"I'm fine!" Laura barked and watched in dismay as Julia flinched back. "I'm sorry. I'm just…so upset with that…ugh. I'm writing a formal complaint against the both of them right now."

"I'd be happy to sign it as well if you think it would help. Or write up my own…but, I was meaning more the…other. I know you said it wasn't, you know…but, it certainly seems it. Have you taken a test?"

Taken aback Laura paused a moment to regroup. She'd already snapped at the younger woman, and if she wasn't careful she could end up needing to file a complaint against herself. So she forced herself to smile and keep her voice quiet. "I'm not…I can't be see? I've never been able to." She hoped that would be the end of the matter, because in her present state the question and its inevitable negative response hit her much harder than it normally would have.

"Oh," Julia said in a hushed, apologetic tone. But, almost immediately, the ever-optimistic girl brightened. "Well, you still might want to take the test…how many women do you know that have been told the same thing and ended up with a baby? I know more than one myself…"

"Not this one," Laura told her.

Julia laughed. "I've got one—a test that is. They come in pairs, you know…only I only needed the one. I can bring it tomorrow…just in case you decide to—well, you know…if it's not a baby, it's certainly something. Before you make a doctor's appointment, you might as well try…they'll insist on checking anyway if you go in with a list of symptoms that sound just like morning sickness."

Laura, who had no intention of making a doctor's appointment over a stubborn, off again-on again stomach bug, saw that the only way out of this particular conversation was to graciously accept the offer. She had no intention of staring at a negative pregnancy result and dealing with the emotional upset that would undoubtedly follow. Still, Julia was only trying to be helpful; there was no need for her to know that the test was going straight into the rubbish bin at home.

Before she closed the mortuary for the evening, Robbie popped in. He looked worse than she felt and she understood why when he told her a young girl, another Lonsdale student, had been attacked that afternoon. She'd managed to escape but she'd suffered first. Laura knew he took it personally. Not the attack but the failure to stop the assailant. He blamed himself for what the poor girl had endured because he'd been unable to put the clues together and catch his man. Laura rubbed his arm and murmured comforting comments, but there was nothing she could do to help him.

Finally, he looked around, saw she was about to leave, and offered to buy her a pint and maybe a bite to eat on her way home. She knew he liked to talk things over with her and she usually would have jumped at the chance, but the very thought of stepping foot into a pub made her feel ill. He took one look at her rapidly turning green and knew her stomach bug was back after all.

"Sit down, Laura…before you fall down," he ordered, taking her arm and helping her into her chair. She normally would have bristled at that, but even if she would have felt up to it, he didn't give her the opportunity. "I want you to see a doctor. Tomorrow. I don't care how you feel in the morning. Tomorrow." She most certainly would have had something to say about him ordering her about, but it was difficult to snap at a man while he rubbed your back and held the rubbish bin for you while you vomited.

He pulled out a somewhat crumpled but apparently clean handkerchief for her to wipe her face with when she was finished and left a steadying hand on her back. His mobile rang in his pocket, but he ignored it. Kneeling down in front of her and searching her face, he asked, "All right? You going to be able to get home?" He grimaced awkwardly to indicate the still ringing phone. "It'll be Hathaway ready for me to swing by and pick him up…we've a few things to see to yet tonight. But, we'll get you home if you need us to?"

"No, Robbie. I'll be fine."

"And you'll see a doctor tomorrow?"

She sighed. She had a hard enough time denying him anything when he asked even when he hadn't just been so sweet. "I'll make an appointment, but I doubt they'll get me in tomorrow…"

He frowned at her and then nodded. "Fine. But if in the meantime this gets worse you'll go to casualty, right?"

"Right," she agreed reluctantly.

Julia slipped her the pregnancy test when she walked into the building the next morning. She mumbled an insincere 'thanks' and thrust it into the pocket of her jacket. She was busy with a traffic fatality for most of the morning and toyed with the thought of claiming a lack of time prevented her from calling her doctor. But…that wasn't the kind of marriage she wanted. And he'd never even made it home the night before; he'd be in no mood to buy such a flimsy excuse or to listen to reason. She made the call and found it would be after the weekend before she could be seen. Good. By then she was bound to be feeling better, his case would be solved, and she could cancel.

Robbie and James wandered in almost before she'd hung up the phone. She could see in their weary but triumphant faces that Shana Codwell's killer was safely behind bars. Good news then. Very good news. Robbie kissed her in quiet jubilation and invited her out to a celebratory lunch if she was up to it. She figured one way or another she had better be. Their relief and delight at having caught their man made them both garrulous and she soon knew how they'd spent their night and arrested their killer.

James was too observant, even after a very long night, to not eventually notice Robbie's concerned glances her way and his frown when she'd only ordered tea. "Everything all right?" the observant sergeant eventually asked during a lull in the conversation.

"I've been a bit under the weather," she said.

Lewis snorted and said, "More than a bit…she's been carrying on like a—" his eyes widened and he threw her a questioning glance as he cut off whatever he'd been saying. She avoided his searching gaze and James looked from one of them to the other speculatively.

"It's just a touch of the flu," she said into the silence.

James helpfully offered, "I've heard it's going around." For which she shot him a grateful look. Robbie muttered something under his breath, and she didn't have quite enough courage to ask him to repeat it. James might have, but he was coming out with a jaw-cracking yawn that reminded them all that neither of the two men had gotten any sleep the night before.

"You best be off home then, Hathaway," Robbie told his sergeant.

James pushed his half-eaten meal away and nodded his agreement. "I hope you're feeling better soon, Laura," he said, made an uncertain move towards his wallet which Robbie waved away, and plodded off for some well-deserved sleep.

"Hadn't you better get to bed as well?" she asked Robbie.

"I'm going. My car's at your place…I'll walk you back." His earlier talkativeness had given way to a heavy silence, and as she felt as tired as he looked she didn't put forth any effort to draw him out. As they reached his car, she did think to tell him that she'd made the doctor's appointment.

He leaned an elbow on the top of his car and looked at her. "You'd tell me, wouldn't you? If…if you were—or thought you were…I mean, I know we never talked about it, and we obviously should have, but it's been a long time since there was any chance of that. I just didn't think. But, you wouldn't leave me fretting something was wrong with you if that was all it was, would you?"

By the time he'd stumbled to a stop, she had with difficulty figured out what he was on about. "Not you too?" she blurted out. "You think I'm pregnant?"

"Well…are you?"

"No! I'm not. I can't be…I never brought it up because you never did and I just assumed you weren't interested in having children and it didn't matter anymore. And it doesn't, does it?"

"No…it doesn't, but are you sure because—"

"Yes, I'm sure…you and Julia!"

"What about Julia?"

"She keeps asking too even after I've told her…even brought me in a pregnancy test to take."

"Did you?"

"Robbie! I've been to the specialists…despite all the stories you've heard about women who are told they can't have children and end up with triplets, they do know what they are talking about."

"Still…"

"Listen," she said, tears making her voice quiet and tight and that was just as well because what were they doing having this conversation right in front of her workplace? "This was all water under the bridge a long time ago, but…I …I don't think I—it took me a long time to get where this doesn't hurt, and I don't think a negative pregnancy test on top of feeling drug out and miserable is somewhere I want to go!"

"No," he agreed, and his voice had taken on the low, compassionate tones she'd heard any number of times as he'd ushered the family of one of her patients away. It brought the tears she'd been fighting rolling down her cheeks and he gathered her into his arms. "Of course not," he murmured into her hair. "It's just…a kiddie I can handle—take some getting used to and we'd have quite a juggling act with jobs and such, but…" He let out a discouraged sigh and then went on, "I've been having these nightmares, see…every since I let myself know how much I…loved you."

Even as tired and worried as he was, he couldn't help smiling a small, bemused, and almost disbelieving smile when he said those words because he had yet to come to grips with finding himself there with her. Sensing it, she felt the tiniest bit better because she felt very much the same way despite the trying circumstances.

Still. "Nightmares?" she prompted him.

"About losing you. Like I did Val—sometimes just like I lost her," his voice faded out as he uttered those last words, and he looked away from her for a moment before continuing. "Sometimes other ways." She didn't need him to elaborate on all the ways death could present itself to a man who'd seen as much of it as he had. "Seeing you sick…I'd much rather it be a bairn."

So. That explained the nightmares. Not Lyn and the coming grandbaby or conflicting emotions over letting go of Val enough to love her. But the fear of being hurt again…he'd barely survived losing Val, and it had taken him years to pick up the pieces of his life. No wonder he thought the complication of an unexpected pregnancy at their ages and current life situations would be better than that. Heaven help them if she ever really were seriously ill.

"Oh, Robbie," she said as she pulled back to look up in to his face. "I'll see the doctor on Tuesday, and you'll see it's nothing to get all worked up about. Honestly. You won't get rid of me as easily as that." With an effort, he worked up a rather sad-looking smile in response and went off for a good long kip.

She slipped into the building hoping no one saw her before she'd managed to get her make-up back to order. As she slipped out of her jacket, the pregnancy test fell out of her pocket. She picked it up and looked it over.

She'd never had need of one before—or now come to that. Running her mind over her talk with Robbie, she searched each word wondering if she'd missed something, if he'd wanted her to be pregnant not just because he'd conjured up some dreaded, fatal disease in his worry over her bout of sickness but because he actually wanted a child. She'd lost lovers over that before. Men who had decided she wasn't enough. She hadn't blamed them, but it had hurt nonetheless. She'd thought she was safe with Robbie. His children were grown, and he was toying with the idea of retirement…surely a fresh go at parenthood was the last thing on his mind. In fact, once he'd gotten some sleep and had time to ruminate on the possibility, he'd probably be thanking his lucky stars he'd jumped to the wrong conclusion.

She thrust the test into her pocket, purposely put it out of her mind, and went back to work. She did not want to think about how she herself would have felt if he and Julie had somehow been miraculously right.

The house wasn't empty when she went home that evening. She skipped the evening snooze on the sofa in favor of slipping straight into bed beside him. He wasn't as young as he once had been and regardless of when he'd made it to bed, it was unlikely he'd be up before morning. Curling herself around the curve of his back, she fell effortlessly to sleep.

She dreamed of a dark-haired baby with her husband's laughing eyes. Though not recently, she'd dreamed of babies before—all too often and all too painfully. She'd learned somewhere through the years to turn the dreams off before they became too real, to force herself awake and turn a blind eye to her mind's projection of what was never going to be. This time…she was either too tired or the dream was too real before it even started, because she stayed in it, basking in the feel of the beautiful child in her arms and Robbie's silly antics making all three of them laugh. James appeared and joined in their laughter. He took the baby from her, studied him intently as though he'd never seen a child before, and then turned to her and said, "Congratulations, Laura. He's beautiful."

And in the glow of that compliment she'd awakened and known only too well how she would have felt if Robbie and Julia had been right. Hot, bitter tears dropped onto the sheet beneath her, and it was far too late to stop them now. She tried to swallow down the sobs that came with them but didn't quite succeed. He turned to her and held her in the dark and even though he didn't say a word, she told him, "It's this talk of babies…it's got me dreaming."

"Bad dreams?"

"No. Good ones." He made a soft noise in response that managed to convey his puzzlement without demanding she elaborate if she wasn't up to it. "I dreamt we had a beautiful baby boy, dark-hair, your eyes, absolutely beautiful, and it was wonderful and marvelous and everything you could ever hope for only, of course…" she shrugged and let her words fade away.

He was quiet for long enough she thought he might have fallen asleep. Then he said, "You still have that test Julia gave you?"

"Yes."

"Take it…in the morning. For me. This already has you upset…can't hurt, can it?"

In the morning, after she'd stared unbelieving at the positive result for so long he'd come looking for her, and after he'd looked at it as well, taken it from her, kissed her, laughed, and drew her into a tight embrace, she asked him, "How did you know?"

He'd shrugged. "Very early on, with both of ours, Val dreamed about that baby boy—or one that sounded just like him anyway. I reckon a woman's body or mind or I don't know…soul maybe? knows before she does. Thought it was worth the chance anyway—long time to Tuesday and I didn't want to be worrying about you all week-end if this was all it was."

"_All_? You think this is just _all_?"

He kissed her again and said, "Well, a perfectly brilliant _all_. A bloody marvelous one at that…and everything will be all right, won't it? Whatever the trouble…it won't—"

"No. It shouldn't."

And it didn't. In due time, James Hathaway gingerly and somewhat reluctantly took her newborn son out of her arms and after staring at the baby intently for a few moments murmured in hushed awe, "Congratulations, Laura. He's beautiful."

_To my children…all of whom are perfectly brilliant and more than bloody marvelous regardless of the weeks of morning sickness._


End file.
